BOB & JAN MACLEAN – THE TWENTY YEARS IN BUKIT INDAH, CIPUTAT JAKARTA CONTINUED.

Last month we gave some highlights of our twenty years at our present location We will mention a few more stories here. Johan Tjaiyati was sent to me at the request of my sponsor to keep in my home because he was causing problems at school. He grew into a fine Christian man, was my secretary for a while and his fiancé, now his wife and mother of his four children, drew the working blueprints from Carol Efaw’s drawing for our present house/office/school.
Pica Tanjaya was one of my two model students at INALTA Bible College. He worked with me for several years; then started a ministry in one of the most dangerous areas of Jakarta. He later spoke at an IKAT (present sponsor’s school) graduation. When he spotted me in the audience, he thoroughly embarrassed me by recounting story after story of how I had blessed him, including driving him to his wedding and home the next day from Sukabumi, about five hours south of here.
While doing the above, we also spent time working and worshipping with the Chinese Church “Jakarta Metro” in Sunter North Jakarta. A building contractor in the church felt God’s call to ministry, returned to school and has accepted the ministry of that enthusiastic congregation.
In between I have taught several semesters of classes at both INALTA Bible College and IKAT Bible College, as well as our own Bible College, INTINI, which we usually referred to as a leadership training school. Two of our students married, moved to Irian Jaya (not their home province) and paid us the great compliment of starting a second INTINI there and so they continue to serve.
I also worked with Ron Ritchey and later our INTINI students to start new churches in Lampung and South Sumatra provinces of Sumatra. We helped establish churches at Wayjepara, and in a beautiful village on the outskirts of Wayjepara, an isolated location outside Metro in beautiful rolling fields of corn and grain.
We also worked out of Palembang, Sumatra, with its famous bridge named Jembatan Ampera designed to lift for the passage of ocean going vessels sailing up the Musi River, almost unheard of in the USA, but wider than the Mississippi. We sailed down the river in speedboats and I still have vivid memories of night teaching sessions where I avoided leaning against the wall behind me completely covered with cockroaches. I also have pictures of some of my students baptizing in the brackish waters around Tiger Island so named for its first and still present residents.
These are just some highlights of memories of the continuingly exciting years at Ciputat, Jakarta.

AN ELDER’S DESIRE

Pak Salmon has been active in the Ciputat Church for three years. He’s an enthusiastic, charismatic leader. He has a desire to increase his Bible knowledge and hopes to go to Bible College in August when the new school year begins. He wants to pay his own way. He is an electrician and has two nephews working under him at several project locations. However, he has a boss too who just sent him to Irian Jaya (West Papua) for a project that’s going to last two or three months. If he wants to come home to see his family during that time, he has to pay his own way.
He has a 13 year old son and 5 year old daughter. In Irian he is living in a tent in a malaria infested area. A new community is being built in the jungle so electricity has to be brought in and put in the homes they are building. This is a government transmigration/homesteading project. The people are mostly Muslim that have been brought in from crowded areas of Java. There is a lot of tension because Irian has been 90% + Christian.

CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR PAK PIET & FAMILY— Pak Piet has been a very earnest Christian for 3 or 4 years now, but he lives near a mosque and the neighbors are antagonistic toward him. Remember he was called to a meeting and even offered a Muslim wife several months ago. He testified Sunday that someone came to him recently and offered to give him land and pay for his two son’s college educations if he would come back to Islam/become a Muslim. The boys just graduated from highschool and Piet doesn’t have any money. Piet’s deceased wife was Muslim, and the local mosque paid for the children’s education. We feel Pak Piet needs to move.

QUOTE FROM “END OF THE SPEAR” BY STEVE SAINT

“the Waodani God followers were not a majority in the tribe. They numbered only about 20 percent. Every once in a while, when the ne anani got together, they would go community by community naming everyone who was following God’s trail. Those who had made a public statement that they were following His trail rather than their own, who had been baptized, and who proved their conviction by the way they lived were considered God followers. The number would have been much higher if they counted everyone who claimed to be a God follower without evaluating the evidence.”
How would we rate in the U.S. or in Indonesia if we surveyed all who said they were Christians. How many would be “God followers”?
If you haven’t read this book, please do. It will give you a lot of insight on what being a missionary means, different customs, and the problem of “dependency” on outside help. Although Steve Saint is a businessman who returned to live with the Waodani, he sees dependency as a big problem as we do as missionaries in Indonesia.

GIVING TO & RECEIVING FROM THE BLIND

On July 2nd we gave a gift of Braille Bibles donated to us by a couple in Yucaipa, California, to a blind evangelistic team who shared with us by leading the music, playing the keyboard and preaching at the Ciputat worship service.

PRAYER & PRAISE

PRAISE FOR:
1. Bob & Jan celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary July 8
2. Bob & Jan began their 33rd year in Indonesia July 9

PLEASE PRAY FOR:
1. Pak Salmon in Irian Jaya
2. Arlin’s health
3. Pak Piet’s situation
4. God’s leading in seeking a new evangelist for the Ciputat church.

CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR:
1. Completion of the land title on the mission property.
2. Wisdom for our evangelists in Aceh, Ciracas, & Pamulang.